Head, Heart and Gut
by Freya-Kendra
Summary: The toughest decisions should always be three-pronged…as Joe learns after too long postponing one such decision—and discovering the power of "3."


**Head, Heart and Gut**

XxXxX

Joe stared into the fire, allowing the flames to draw him in, willing them to draw him deeper still. He wanted to forget. To escape. To find a way past it. Past all of it, all the lies, the secrets, the pretense.

How had it come to this? Everything had spun clean out of his control, like a whirlwind barreling through the plains, tearing apart all the good things he'd tried to build…exposing all the bad things he'd tried to set right. He'd made a mistake, an error in judgment. A bad one. And he should have owned up to it right then and there. Instead, he'd made another mistake by trying to erase it, to make it go away, to make things right so no one would ever have to know how wrong he'd been…so his pa wouldn't have to see him for the idiot he was, and Adam wouldn't be proved right about his youngest brother being too irresponsible to be trusted.

But Adam had been right all along, hadn't he? Joe couldn't even trust himself anymore. One mistake had piled on top of another, and then another and another until…until all those mistakes had grown into a mountain Joe knew he didn't have the strength to climb.

But no, that wasn't right, was it? Joe didn't have to climb it; he was already on top of it, propelled there by all his mounting mistakes. What he really needed strength for now was to step to the edge, to face the abyss he could no longer avoid and fess up once and for all, placing himself completely at his family's mercy.

He'd already tried God's mercy, but God wasn't having it. Besides, Joe reckoned it was Pa, Adam and Hoss whose judgment mattered more anyway. And God knew that, too, didn't He? Maybe that's why God wasn't having it, why He didn't let Joe's attempts at fixing things fix anything at all.

I'm sorry, God! How many times do I have to confess to You? To admit I was wrong? To pray…to _beg_ for Your forgiveness?

That's when Joe realized it wasn't God's forgiveness he needed. It was his family's.

Did Joe have more faith in God than in his own family?

No, that wasn't it either. Joe had as much faith in his family as he had in God. It was himself he didn't have faith in. He didn't deserve his family's trust, so he hadn't given them any reason to trust him.

"Hey, Joe?" Hoss clapped him hard on the shoulder, almost knocking him from his perch on the coffee table. "You said you was gonna set up the checkerboard."

Joe looked at him, at his trusting eyes, and he felt a sharp stab of guilt. Then he looked past Hoss, to where Pa sighed contentedly, settling into his favorite chair to read the paper. Lastly, Joe looked to Adam, who was finally getting a chance to crack open the book he'd picked up in San Francisco two weeks earlier. It was a good time, a good moment for all of them, a moment without worry, without concern of any kind, a rarity to be treasured, to be appreciated. Joe didn't have the heart to wrench it away from them.

But…as the flames had already told him…as his silent talk with God had already made clear…Joe didn't have the option to avoid it. Not anymore.

"Pa?" Joe said, steeling himself. "Adam? Hoss? I…." He swallowed, more nervous than ever now that they were all looking at him. Glancing down, he absently rubbed his hand along his thigh. "I did something…something I never meant…. It wasn't so much I was trying to hide it from you, as…as I was trying to…to protect you. …And," he admitted, "to protect _me_, to protect your…your opinions of me. I'm sorry, I just…."

"What is it Joe?" Adam asked as he set his treasured new book aside with a suspicious look in his eye. "Spit it out."

Joe glanced down again. "I made a mistake. A…a big one."

"Joseph?" Pa prodded when Joe paused again, all signs of his contentment gone. "What have you done?"

"I…" Joe rubbed his thigh again, looking up at Hoss to see a furrowed brow shielding those trusting, blue eyes of his. And suddenly Joe couldn't face them anymore, not a single one of them. He turned his attention back to the fire, deciding to speak his confession aloud to the flames, where it was safe, where he could escape without ever really escaping. "It started back when…."

As Joe spoke, his family members took turns shouting out angrily at his irresponsibility, his cavalier attitude, his carelessness. But Joe kept his eyes on the flames and just talked louder through it all, needing to get the words out without interruption. He continued looking at the flames when he was done.

"I'm sorry," he said again, his voice breaking. "I tried. I tried so hard to make things right. I didn't want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt anyone."

"Joseph," Pa said softly. "Don't you realize this mistake of yours would have been much easier to fix if you hadn't waited until now to tell us?"

Finally, Joe turned to face him. "Yes, Pa. I do realize that. I was wrong. In so many ways, I was wrong." He looked to Adam then. "And you were right. You were always right. I'm irresponsible. And as angry as I've been at you for refusing to trust me, I guess I'm just going to have to accept that I don't deserve your trust. To say 'I'm sorry' is just never going to be good enough."

Adam sighed, giving a frustrated glance upward before meeting Joe's eyes again. "At least it's a start."

"What?"

"Saying you're sorry and admitting your mistakes. It's a start. Like Pa, I wish you'd said something sooner. _Much_ sooner. But there is some validity to the phrase better late than never."

"I didn't have a choice anymore."

"Sure you did. You could have run away from it. Outlaws do that all the time."

"So now you think I'm an outlaw?"

"You still don't listen to me very well, do you? I said you chose not to take the path of an outlaw. My guess is you never even considered it."

"Why would you guess that? If you can't trust me, I'd figure _you'd_ figure me to think like an outlaw."

"There are a lot of levels of trust, Joe. I can always trust you to think with your heart. That's why I would never figure you for an outlaw. As angry as you can make me, you're not a bad person. And, in a way, that's part of your problem."

"Huh?" Hoss asked. "How could it be a problem to not be a bad person?"

"The trouble is," Adam went on, "just because your heart's in the right place doesn't mean it's going to lead you to do the right thing."

"Adam's got a point, son," Pa added. "The best decisions any of us can ever make are three-pronged. You listen to your heart, your gut _and_ your head; and you don't let any one of them ignore the others. My guess is your head has been telling you to come to us about this ever since the beginning, but you let your heart get the better of you."

Joe rubbed his stomach. "My gut's sure done its share of complaining, too."

"I'm sure it has," Adam said.

When no one said anything further, Joe couldn't help but ask, "What now?"

"Now," Pa said sternly, "we have some decisions to make. Together. So we can fix this mess you've managed to draw us all into."

Hoss nodded thoughtfully. "Well, I reckon the three of us got what it takes, with Adam there havin' the head, me havin' the gut, and Joe havin' the heart."

"What about Pa?" Joe asked, confused.

"I, Joseph," Pa answered, sitting up straighter in his chair, "am the judge."

Joe thought about his silent chat with the fire and he smiled deep inside himself, relieved that the three of them, Adam, Hoss and Pa, were neither considering him an outlaw nor threatening to burn him at the stake. There would be a rough road ahead, and a lot of heated arguments, he was sure. But…he could see a road ahead of him now, not just an abyss. And if there was ever any evidence of God's mercy, that was it.

Returning his attention briefly to the flames, "Thank you," he whispered softly. Then he turned back again, confident that no tongue lashing or punishment Judge Pa might dole out would ever equal what he'd already given himself.

XxXxX

_end_


End file.
